In the Philippines, America’s colonial legacy casts a long shadow. The military-basing agreement between the United States and the Philippines following its independence, due to expire in 1991, drew increasing Filipino elite opposition in the 1980s. In June 1991, Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption destroyed Clark Air Base. U.S. and Filipino negotiators could not agree on a formula for Subic Bay Naval Base; all American forces were therefore removed from the Philippines before 1993. Ending the archipelago’s permanent U.S. military presence necessitated finding alternative sites to sustain an active American forward presence in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. This presence is important to safeguarding freedom of navigation amid simmering South China Sea territorial tensions.

With Corazon Aquino assuming office following the end of Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule, Filipinos began the long process of reworking their political institutions and foreign policy. This included rethinking the Philippine-U.S. relationship, which granted Cold War ally Marcos considerable assistance, including military aid. Washington even facilitated Marcos’ final departure from the Philippines and exile in Hawaii. American complicity in authoritarian administration and disruptive behavior by U.S. troops, mixed with lingering unhappiness with colonial rule—including brutal suppression of the indigenous anti-colonial movement—fueled widespread opposition to continued American basing. Mt. Pinatubo merely accelerated what seemed to be the Philippines-based U.S. forces’ inevitable departure.

One result is greater difficulty in promoting stability and broadly accepted management of South China Sea disputes. Filipino military weakness and lack of an American presence have made it easier for other disputants, notably China, to occupy and reinforce Philippine-claimed islands and reefs. Such action has been destabilizing, potentially escalatory and reinforces a precedent for using forcible measures to handle differences. Continuing domestic ambivalence toward Washington and factional elite oligarchy politics continue to make reviving a more active U.S. security role through anti-terrorism efforts and some form of visiting-forces arrangement tricky, the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Security Treaty and American military disaster assistance notwithstanding. Even amid its lingering ambivalence, Manila also prefers to have much stronger and clearer U.S. support for its South China Sea claims, steps that Washington has been wary of making to avoid direct involvement in those disputes. These issues have improved somewhat of late, but remain problematic nonetheless.

Washington must address the challenges associated with political transition to better mitigate the various risks associated with the liberal democratization of its East Asian partners.

The United States faces challenges trying to maintain robust security partnerships with politically liberalizing societies where Washington was perceived complicit in suppression of legitimate indigenous interests. This mixed legacy can inspire electorally empowered publics to raise new complications for continued U.S. presence and influence. Washington must understand and mitigate attendant risks. To explain why and how, we draw on in-depth conversations and interviews with a wide variety of interlocutors in the societies discussed.

New domestic dynamics in politically liberalizing societies demand revisions to relations with Washington, complicating a range of U.S. interests, including forward deployment, ensuring freedom of navigation and maintaining regional stability. Yet, these societies often wish to maintain substantive security cooperation with Washington. Hence, their “ambivalent alignment.” Today, these developments are most readily apparent in East Asian societies, complicating “rebalancing” efforts. Over time, the legacy of American complicity in single-party dominance and even authoritarian rule may likewise affect the U.S. position in other key regions such as the Middle East.

Washington must actively address challenges associated with political transition to better mitigate the attendant volatility and risks associated with such processes. American policy makers have to recognize how American security ties influence the politics of liberalization and consider measures to preemptively dampen fallout that may follow from attempts at using perceptions of the United States for partisan mobilization. The U.S. military, in particular, should minimize negative social effects associated with numerous personnel operating from a given area. These concerns are especially salient in areas where the United States has a long relationship with a previously dominant regime.

Background

Political liberalization in Asian societies where Washington previously supported dominant regimes that suppressed significant indigenous interests fosters alignment ambivalence. Such societies increasingly desire to address the costs, risks and historical baggage of authoritarian rule, including those associated with long-standing strategic relationships with Washington. Even if existing strategic arrangements remain mutually beneficial, attempts to adjust ties with the United States to better meet local needs may impose new restrictions on the quality of cooperation. Resulting incongruity among key partners can hinder, even undermine, American efforts to rebalance toward Asia, and requires special attention.

During the Cold War, Washington cooperated with authoritarian and single-party-dominant governments to defend maritime East Asia from communism. This history embroils Americans in complex national identity and political liberalization struggles. Important as political liberalization is to better governance, domestic stability and cooperation with other liberal polities, it can create multiple short-term stress points for strategic partnerships. These include pressure to revise basing and alliance commitments, intensified regional rivalries and inattention to broader security concerns.

As the more powerful, domestically stable actor, Washington is in a better position than its partners to think ahead about the possibilities and opportunities for redefining relations. Historical East Asian cases highlight key challenges and suggest how to frame responses.

Political Liberalization and Alignment Ambivalence

Many East Asian societies today, freed from Cold War security imperatives and facing political liberalization, are viewing old problems through a new lens. In an oft-repeated pattern, popular political opposition, repressed under U.S.-backed authoritarian or single-party-dominant rule, finally achieves power and pursues policies to overturn elite power structures domestically, strengthen national identity symbolically and put military relations with Washington on more equal terms. Authoritarian rule often facilitated passing social costs of U.S. backing disproportionately to ordinary locals, particularly in places with a heavy U.S. military presence. This legacy incentivizes politicians to at least appear to have some distance from Washington. Basing and related issues give local politicians new ways to channel sincere grievances or profit politically. Problems, often unintended, emerge when they seize opportunities that generate alliance friction for internal or external reasons.

Efforts by new democracies to revise relations with Washington typically result in deteriorating relations that frustrate management of new and ongoing security challenges—including threats that helped motivate partnerships with Washington to begin with. Politicians thus must resume a viable working relationship with Washington. Examples have appeared in South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia and even in long-democratized Japan. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore represent possible future cases where such concerns may emerge.

What’s at Stake

Ambivalence in East Asia toward security relationships with the United States during and after democratization affects maintenance of an American presence regionally and globally. Bases in Japan critically support U.S. Western Pacific and Indian Ocean deployments and ensure freedom of navigation. Visiting-forces agreements and strategic partnerships across East Asia augment these American interests and regional counterterrorism. U.S. bases in South Korea enable responses to a North Korean contingency, just as America’s security relationship with Taiwan helps manage cross-Strait tensions.

Maintaining a robust American presence in East Asia is particularly crucial for enhancing U.S. bilateral and regional cooperation with an emergent China. Washington continues to be a key provider of public goods such as global commons security and underwriting of an open international economic system. This undergirds the stable regional environment that supports trans-Pacific development and prosperity while China negotiates internal challenges and reforms necessary for its continued progress.

Moreover, development of a rule-based regional order that incorporates a clear Chinese voice and enables effective management of Sino-American differences hinges on Washington’s ability to work with actors around East Asia regarding common interests. Reliable regional interlocutors for Washington facilitate realization of these gains; shaky or dysfunctional partnerships undermine such benefits. Neglect of security issues during political transition may encourage a U.S. partner’s rivals to alter the existing security situation in ways that heighten regional tension and instability.

Adequately addressing liberalizing partners’ strategic ambivalence can help Washington preempt and mitigate manifold policy complications that can harm regional security and American interests. Continued engagement of security partners during and after liberalization affords Washington a means to avoid crises and manage escalation. Effective American influence can dissuade liberalizing security partners from unnecessarily provoking rivals while encouraging them to pay attention to key strategic and foreign-policy issues. We now examine principal extant cases of alignment ambivalence among key U.S. partners in Asia and their consequences, in descending order of the severity of challenges for Washington.

…

Philippines

In the Philippines, America’s colonial legacy casts a long shadow. The military-basing agreement between the United States and the Philippines following its independence, due to expire in 1991, drew increasing Filipino elite opposition in the 1980s. In June 1991, Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption destroyed Clark Air Base. U.S. and Filipino negotiators could not agree on a formula for Subic Bay Naval Base; all American forces were therefore removed from the Philippines before 1993. Ending the archipelago’s permanent U.S. military presence necessitated finding alternative sites to sustain an active American forward presence in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. This presence is important to safeguarding freedom of navigation amid simmering South China Sea territorial tensions.

With Corazon Aquino assuming office following the end of Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule, Filipinos began the long process of reworking their political institutions and foreign policy. This included rethinking the Philippine-U.S. relationship, which granted Cold War ally Marcos considerable assistance, including military aid. Washington even facilitated Marcos’ final departure from the Philippines and exile in Hawaii. American complicity in authoritarian administration and disruptive behavior by U.S. troops, mixed with lingering unhappiness with colonial rule—including brutal suppression of the indigenous anti-colonial movement—fueled widespread opposition to continued American basing. Mt. Pinatubo merely accelerated what seemed to be the Philippines-based U.S. forces’ inevitable departure.

One result is greater difficulty in promoting stability and broadly accepted management of South China Sea disputes. Filipino military weakness and lack of an American presence make it easy for other disputants, notably China, to occupy and reinforce Philippine-claimed islands and reefs. Such action is destabilizing, potentially escalatory and reinforces a precedent for using forcible measures to handle differences. Continuing domestic ambivalence toward Washington and factional elite oligarchy politics make reviving a more active U.S. security role through anti-terrorism efforts and some form of visiting-forces arrangement tricky, the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Security Treaty and American military disaster assistance notwithstanding. Manila also prefers to have much stronger and clearer U.S. support for its South China Sea claims, steps that Washington is wary of making to avoid direct involvement in those disputes. …

[These issues have improved somewhat since this article was published, but remain problematic nonetheless.]

Handling Ambivalence

Washington must be attentive to host nations’ domestic challenges. U.S. basing will continue to be sensitive in this era of dynamic domestic political change. But this is about far more than access rights and alliance commitment problems. While the U.S. military rightly remains studiously apolitical, it cannot avoid operating in host nations’ domestic sphere by virtue of basing in and cooperating with allied and partner nations. To address these challenges, Washington needs to treat historical grievances and symbolism carefully, particularly vis-à-vis basing issues. It must maintain robust connections and dialogue with actors across the political spectrum in its partners and allies. Such an approach is important to underpinning robust, sustained relationships that help maintain stability and advance American interests in a world of simmering tensions and heightened uncertainty.

A factor common to all these cases of political liberalization—and potentially others—is the inherent reaction of any polity to a dominant global power with its broad interests coupled with past complicity, if not support, for the suppression and even repression of local interests. Such reactions were previously contained by Cold War concerns and more restrictive domestic politics. That these imperatives no longer override domestic desires spurs pressure to reshape long-standing security ties with Washington, even if persistent security challenges delay and dampen these impulses to varying degrees. That said, the intensity of ambivalence toward Washington varies among these societies, given different experiences with single-party dominance or authoritarianism, the trajectory of transition toward democracy and the timeline and extent of U.S. responsibility therein.

Overall implications are clear. Experience from East Asia suggests that American policy makers need to better anticipate the complications that accompany political liberalization and increased domestic contestation in the societies of U.S. partners. Carefully considering political minefields helps ensure that these long-standing security ties remain effective through political transition. This requires (1) comprehending various political factions’ positions; (2) understanding how they can manipulate the legacy of cooperation with the United States in contemporary domestic politics, particularly if Washington has had a close relationship with the past regime; (3) recognizing how that legacy may resonate, especially with the voting public during electoral contests; (4) devising working relationships with different political factions throughout the political liberalization process; (5) ensuring that foreign counterparts can convince voters and neighboring leaders that alliances serve national interests; (6) pursuing a “whole of government” approach that ensures operational activities are undertaken and coordinated with firm local support; (7) emphasizing transparency and proactive engagement, since the modern media makes concealing most information impossible and rumors flourish when aligned with ambivalence narratives and (8) devising plans to handle potential alignment crises.

A heavy-handed U.S. approach to these issues will likely compound problems by potentially implicating American involvement in partners’ domestic politics. Therefore, U.S. policy makers and officials need to manage the politics of liberalization and contestation in key security partners quietly, but firmly and consistently. Effectively handling the politics of an authoritarian legacy during democratic transition enables the United States to maintain alliances and partnerships capable of addressing geopolitical challenges and containing turmoil.

More careful thinking and preparation for the bumpy processes of political liberalization are particularly important to American foreign and security policy today. The United States needs to work with Asian allies to incorporate China as a partner and innovator in the current international framework. This is in part the rationale behind the Obama administration’s rebalancing strategy. Such an approach becomes more trying when societies across Asia are undergoing their own domestic political transitions. This is as much the case with key treaty allies like South Korea, Japan and the Philippines as it is with partners like Taiwan and Indonesia. Outside East Asia, Washington must work with long-term partners—like Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt—that are undergoing political liberalization. This phenomenon will likely proliferate as existing regimes in places like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore face greater pressure for political reform. Better preparedness in this regard will better safeguard the interests of both the United States and its partners.